Modern biomedical research relies on interdisciplinary approaches such as bioinformatics that synthesize knowledge and methods from other disciplines to provide an integrated framework for solving biomedical problems. The rapid advancement of high-throughput technologies for measuring biological systems has generated a significant demand at Dartmouth College and other research institutions across Northern New England for interdisciplinary approaches in the quantitative sciences (e.g. bioinformatics, biostatistics, genomics, mathematical biology, proteomics, and systems biology). Integrating high-dimensional research databases with clinical databases from medical schools and hospitals across the region will be needed for translational medicine to become a reality. Unfortunately, the research institutions in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are in a largely rural setting have not kept pace those in larger metropolitan areas such as nearby Boston or New York. The goal of this COBRE program is to establish a Quantitative Biology Research Institute (QBRI) that will support and enhance quantitative biology research across the region and facilitate its integration and synergy with experimental and observational biology. This will be accomplished by 1) establishing a Quantitative Biology Research Institute (QBRI) focused on developing, supporting, and enhancing quantitative biology research in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont that will become nationally and internationally recognized, free standing, and will foster meaningful collaborations with experimental biologists thus improving the ability of investigators in the region to compete for NIH funding, 2) recruiting talented tenure track quantitative biologists to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, 3) mentoring the development of four junior quantitative biologists across the region and 4) promoting synergistic collaborations between quantitative biologists and experimental biologists through four research projects, an Administrative Core and an Integrative Biology Core. The scientific focus of the four research projects is gene-environment interaction within the context of environmental health and toxicology. This provides an important unifying and synergistic theme for the COBRE.